So, a two hour press conference was held by Thanopoulos today. Reporters said it was very sincere, "straight from the heart" kind of stuff. Clearly not saying what he is being told to say but rather what is true.

So, progress should be made soon with regards to Kozonis. A paper should be signed this weekend stating both sides are intending to go through with the deal (or something along those lines) and if all goes well (no arguments or hidden debts suddenly showing up) the transition will occur December 31st.

So, a nice, relatively comfortable win on Monday brought us up from ninth to joint fifth.

We got the three points we so desperately needed, as well as a little bit of reassurance for the players and fans. Beating a team like Larissa with a score of 3-1 is always a nice thing. Sure, Larissa might not be at their best, but they are rarely an easy team to win against (I feel like I've said that many times already this season).

So, one point from a game where it won't really do much to help us. In reality though, we could have come away with all three points had we managed to score one more of our chances, or had Saja not made a terrible mistake that the goalkeeper on my own amateur team would likely avoid.

Well, AEKBaltimore will watch the match on TV soon, since I believe he recorded it, and I'm not sure if AEKMAN74 watched as well.

So, as is typical with AEK, we blow an early 1-0 lead and end up with a draw (today, the match against PAS, the Cup Final, the match with BATE).

My stream today was poor quality, so I can't comment as much as I could have. But basically what we saw throughout the match was that we had many chances, yet we only scored one of them.

After a pretty good performance by AEK, we are up 1-0 from a Manduca header off of a fine cross from Karabelas. Some great chances for us, including one with Manduca and one with Blanco. Ergotelis started stronger but we picked up the tempo around the 20th minute and we are now dominating for the most part.

We are officially a club in crisis.

A lackluster AEK missed chance after chance, and it was 0-0 after regular time. Â Then, in the 14th minute of extra time, Thrasyvoulos nicked a goal and they held their lead through the rest of extra time. Â That is it then. Â We are out of the Greek Cup, felled by a Division B team.

Ok, to be honest, I was expecting a loss for AEK here. Aris were considered favorites for this game and I think that's somewhat justified. Bearing that in mind, I'll take a draw here. Its never easy to win away against Aris, even on a good day.

I wasn't able to watch the match since it was satellite.

Well, our night went from good to about as bad as it could get. As you can see from the post below we were up 1-0 at half time.

The second half started and early on Majstorovic gets his second yellow and is sent off and Bate tie the game. So, one of our key players is sent off, the pitch condition is deteriorating (and it was disgusting to begin with) and we were loosing the control over the game we had before.

45 minutes in and we're leading this one 1-0! Blanco scored a penalty (certainly the correct call) to put us up and we now are in a great position and the win is definately possible.

Conditions are terrible in Minsk. It is extremely cold (near zero degrees celcius) and the pitch is extremely wet.

As Greeksoccer reports, Robert Kozonis, a wealthy bussiness man from Chicago is interested in becoming the main owner of AEK. This could be great for the club. He apparently has the necessary funds, and is not worried by the debt. The link discusses more details.

This is the kind of guy that can make the difference with AEK.

For those interested, here is a video of yesterday's goals, as well as some of the chances both teams missed.

This link here mentions the news that has happened with the share transfers, as well as some of the bad news affecting our team right now (as well as the Basketball and Volleyball teams).

Kanellopoulos has given his 13.5 % of shares to the amateur club so that they now have a 23.5 % share of the club. A pretty big share of the club indeed. Dimitris Hatzichristos as many of you will know is the head of the amateurs and Original21.

What will happen from this move nobody can say yet.

First off, the highlights:

AEKMAN74 posted a review earlier on this match which covered most of the main points so be sure to check that out as well. I'd just like to add a few things.

We lined up with Saja as keeper, Araujo, Arce, Majstorovic, and Georgeas (who played left back) playing defence, Hersi, Geurreiro, Jahic, and Manduca playing Midfield, with Scocco and Blanco playing attack.

ESPN reviewed our win over Benfica in the Europa League here.

UEFA published not one, but two seperate articles on the match. You can read them here and here.

PortuGOAL's coverage here.

Sky Sports covered the game as well; article posted here.

Article on the entire Group I by Extra Footie here.

A resurgent AEK overcame a depressing 4-0 thrashing to Everton two weeks ago to grind out a surprising but deserved 1-0 victory over Portugeuese powerhouse club Benfica FC.

The night started dismally for AEK. Playing what I believe was a 4-2-3-1 with Saja in goal and Juanfran, Arce, Marjstorovic, and Gorgeas in the back, Kafes and Jahic in defensive midfield roles, Manduca, Scocco and Hersi forming a three-man attacking line and Blanco playing lone goal-poacher up top, AEK struggled for possession early on.

A huge win for us, absolutely incredible! So many good things to say, its going to take a while. I believe AEKBaltimore recorded the game since it was on in the US as well, so hopefully he will have some more comments as well.

First off, let me just repeat that once more. AEK 1-0 Benfica.

Finally, the victory we've been waiting for. The victory we needed. Our team, loaded with a hastily-assembled talent and led by an excellent coach, just needed a little but of confidence to gel and see us through, and we got it tonight with a decisive Europe League win over Portuguese powerhouse Benfica.

Makis Psomiadis, a previous owner of AEK who stole millions of EUROs from the club, will now face jail time. He's been sent to prison before but got out of it and I really wouldn't be surprised if he gets out of it again. Too bad though, the guy deserves nothing more than some sever punishment for the harm he caused to our club.

So, another derby lost. That makes it the first time we've lost two derbies in a row in about ten years. Not a good sign.

Not many positives to take from this game, both sides played some pretty poor football. I'm not going to bother writing much as there is little to say. Firstly, our forwards still can't score.

Well, there has been quite a bit of discussion in the post AEKBaltimore put up. Since the match alot has happened, most regarding the horrendous officiating at the match. But first, a review.

For everyone who has been following AEK you know how incredibly unlucky we tend to be, especially when it matters most.

Obviously not the result we were hoping for. The lads did indeed show up to play tonight but the final touch wasn't there. Creating and finishing chances is a huge part of football though, so we've only ourselves to blame (well, maybe the refs can share the blame!). I was stuck in the office for this match, but I was able to watch a low-quality stream for about twenty minutes in the second half.

Decent match preview here. We've had a bit of a bad run lately, so it's hard not to be nervous. But if our lads show up to play, there is no question we are the better team.

The FIFA Under-20 World Cup starts tomorrow (Thursday) in Egypt, and ESPN has identified eleven players it believes will stand-out in the tournament. Among them is our own Krisztian Nemeth:

Krisztian Nemeth (Hungary & Liverpool)
Krisztian Nemeth joins Liverpool team-mates Andras Simon and keeper Peter Gulacsi in the Hungary squad, although he is currently on loan to Greek side AEK Athens.

An extremely disappointing result today for AEK in Giannena.

Our starting lineup consisted of Saja, Araujo, Majstorovic, Arce, Juanfran, Hersi, Guerreiro, Jahic, Manduca, Nemeth, Pavlis.

I can't comment much on the first half since I could only watch the second half, but from what I heard we saw some decent passing from the team.

Well, our match in Giannena starts in a little under an hour. Our most likely starting lineup is said to be Saja, Araujo, Majstorovic, Arce, Juanfran, Jahic, Guerreiro, Hersi, Manduca, Nemeth, and Blanco. We will be going 4-4-2 with Blanco and Nemeth up front. A good line-up in my opinion, very strong, with some experienced players.

This, courtesy of GolTV, is the sweetest sight I've seen in a while:

3:00 pm UEFA Europa League Everton vs AEK Athens

Greek Americans rejoice! GolTV seems to have successfully bid for the US broadcasting rights of at least some Europa League Group Stage Matches.

Ketsbaia, for those too young remember, was a great AEK player between 94-97 who scored an impressive 23 goals in 84 games. From AEK he enjoyed a successful spell at Newcastle in England's top flight. Considering Olymiakos have not lost an "official" match yet, I suppose this is the way of the modern football world.

Some important comments to mention about yesterday's match.

Firstly, our to team put on a good performance. Even now more can be improved on. but it was a solid game for the most part with some enjoyable football.

This is definately a good result. On paper, Iraklis are certainly not a pushover this year with some pretty impressive signings being made for them over the summer.

We got a good win tonight at OAKA against a team that could have put up some difficulties. Unfortunately though, its quite late here, so I dont have time to post a review right now. Either I'll write it tomorrow or perhaps if either AEKMAN74 or AEKBaltimore watched the match they'll get something.

A long press conference was held a few days ago by team president Thanopoulos. The president spoke for a couple of hours on a number of issues. Some of the highlights were:

-Firstly, he confirmed that things around the team are now calm. We have achieved our goals in terms of transfers and reaching the Europa League Group Stages

-The team is now on much more solid ground, financially.

This weekend (Labor Day Weekend here in the May-Day-Hating United States) signals the end of the Summer. Â The other thing that always signals the end of Summer for me is the closing of the transfer window. Â It's done now, but not before we squeezed in two last signings. Â I meant to post this a few days ago, but better late than never:

FC Twente have captured Perparim Hetemaj from AEK Athens FC in a swap deal that takes Dutch midfielder Youssouf Hersi from the Netherlands to the Greek capital.

We got the three points here. It wasn't a pretty three points but, at this point in time, I'll take them.

First, the video of our goal, set up beautifully by Nemeth.

Some good aspects to mention about our play today, but overall, it was not an impressive victory.

Our defence today was not the greatest, and Majstorovic and Juanfran in particular were quite poor.

The UEFA Europa League Group Stage draw was released on Friday August 28, 2009. There are 12 groups of 4 teams that will play in the group stage starting on September 17th running till December 17th. Some of the interesting matchups include Celtic and Hamburg in Group C, Villareal and Lazio in Group G, and Sporting, Heerenveen, and Hertha Berlin in Group D.

UEFA has a nice piece up on the Roger Guerreiro signing.

And the BBC has an article up on the Krisztian Nemeth loan deal with Liverpool.

ESPN says that Everton face a tricky trip to Athens to play us, but the Liverpool Daily Post seems a bit less worried. We'll show 'em.